Ruin of Dragons Page 9

  Gareth walked to the center of the room and sat down in the diagnostic exam chair. Greyc stepped behind the monitor station to the side and activated the chair, which rose up, straightening out as the back lowered and the leg supports lifted. After a moment Gareth was lying flat, suspended several feet from the floor as a system scanner dropped from the ceiling and positioned itself directly above his head. The scan initiated, and Gareth closed his eyes as an arc of blue light projected onto his forehead and started progressing down the length of his body.

  "Any issues I should be aware of?" Greyc asked.

  "Nothing serious, probably," Gareth said, trying to lie still. There was an odd buzzing sensation in his head and an uncomfortable wet numbness that seemed to spread from the point of the scanner's sensor array. "My temperature took longer than usual to normalize after this last encounter," he continued, wincing slightly. "I'm guessing because of the prolonged exposure. I had to work a lot harder to keep from getting burned."

  "Doesn't sound too serious. We'll take a look." She watched the scan's progress for another minute, then looked back up at him. "When you have some time, you should really let me do a full series of diagnostic scans. It shouldn't take more than an afternoon."

  Gareth smiled. Being a member of an aberrant branch of the human species – and one that was recently endangered, at that – made him a scientific oddity. In the more than four years he had been part of the Sanctuary network, every medical facility director that came on board had made a similar request, some being able to hide their professional curiosity more than others. To Greyc's credit, she had been on staff for almost a year before broaching the subject.

  "I'd rather not," he said.

  "It would be helpful," she said. "Not only for you, but for the other Acradians on staff."

  "I know you mean well," he said. "But I'm sure you'll forgive me for not wanting to be another specimen under study."

  Greyc pursed her lips. "Of course," she said. Her tone was diplomatic, but Gareth got the feeling she hadn't given up. "I can't pretend to know what you've been through, but having lost family myself, I feel like I have at least some idea. I'd just like to help, is all."

  Gareth looked up at the ceiling as the scan reached his ankles. "I'm not sure what you can do. We've been a bit scattered for a while." The sensor array silenced and lifted back to its housing on the ceiling, and he could feel the vague numbness begin to abate.

  Greyc watched her monitor a moment longer, her brow creasing slightly, then touched her screen. The exam chair lowered back to the floor, repositioning itself until Gareth was once again upright. She gestured to the door and Gareth stood up, feeling mildly unsteady.

  "Everything looks to be above board," Greyc said, walking with him back into the center office. "Your spikes in temperature aren't abnormal, and there isn't any sign of cellular or synapse damage. I'll have the full results sent to your file. Just make sure you report any other issues that may arise. You know I like keeping tabs on you, you're important to us." She opened the outer doors. Gareth turned back to her.

  "I will," he said. "Thank you, doctor."

  She put a hand on his arm in an attempt at reassurance. "I'm certain there're more of you out there than you think. You'll find them."

  He smiled, but it felt hollow. "That's the hope, anyway."

  Gareth made his way back through the atrium and out into the inner ring. He was considering heading to the commons to get something to eat when his handheld pinged. He pulled it out, finding a short message from Aris.

  Meet us at the ship when you're finished. We're not staying.

  catalyst

  Lightning flashed, illuminating the deep violet sky, revealing a line of dark clouds off in the distance swiftly moving east toward the steadily brightening morning horizon. A brisk wind blew across her face, the sharp drop in temperature making her shudder. She stood on the edge of a short plateau, a deep canyon before her, craggy mountains rising in threatening spires behind her. Lightning continued to dance all around, intermittently near and in the distance creating a ceaseless strobing, punctuating the sense of foreboding that permeated the landscape.

  Another bright flash illuminated the plateau and she noticed a dark figure standing near the edge of the canyon some distance away. The tall silhouette stood silent and unmoving, and as she tried to get a better look, a sudden crack of thunder startled her, making her clench her eyes shut.

  "Petra?" A hand was on her shoulder. "Petra."

  She opened her eyes to see Viv standing next to her. "What?" she asked, looking around. Petra stood next to a partially loaded wheelbarrow at the end of Main Street, in front of the crumbling ruins of the blacksmith workshop. She shook her head, getting her mind back on task.

  A group of several people worked from within the shell of the building, dismantling sections of framing and carrying it to a steadily growing pile of broken lumber and masonry just outside. Petra stepped up to the pile and picked up another armful, continuing to load the wheelbarrow.

  "You spaced out for a minute," Viv said. "Where'd you go?"

  Petra shook her head. I really wish I knew. "You know that memory I told you about?" she said. "I was there again."

  Viv looked concerned. "You're exhausted," she said. "Your mind is wandering."

  "Is it?" Petra said. "It feels like a memory, I'm seeing these images like I was actually there, but there's no way I could have been."

  Viv set down her armful and turned to face Petra. "I told you," she said. "You're remembering a dream. That's all it was." She looked up to the midday sun. It was almost noon. "Look, it's been a long morning, and yesterday was trying enough to make anybody think they're seeing things."

  "I'm not seeing things!" Petra said, a little loud.

  Viv stepped in closer, lowering her voice. "Just like you saw an offworlder's ship carry the dragon away?"

  "What, you think I'm lying?"

  Viv raised her hands. "Nobody's denying you saw the dragon, half the town did, but nobody's seen an offworlder's ship on this side of the planet. It just doesn't happen." She stepped behind the wheelbarrow, lifted the handles and began walking toward the end of the street, where they had cleared an area for a burn pile. "I know how your mind works," she continued as Petra walked beside her. "You'd rather live in one of your stories than here in the real world." They reached the burn pile, dumped the contents of the wheelbarrow onto it and started back. "And if I didn't know better, I'd think you were trying to take attention away from this and make it about you."

  Petra stopped, wide eyed as Viv deposited the barrow back in front of the workshop. That was hardly fair. Yes, Petra was perfectly comfortable living in her own world, but she never felt the need to drag anyone else there. She caught back up to Viv. "I am not trying to make this about me!" Petra protested. "I just think it's really strange that all this happens at once and I'm the one who seems to be in the middle of it all. I'm the one who found the cave, I'm the one who met the wizard, this dragon comes out of nowhere, the first time anyone's seen one in hundreds of years and all of a sudden I have memories of someplace I've never been. It can't all be coincidence."

  Rowan, who was part of the group shuttling lumber from the workshop to the discard pile at the street, stopped at this. "Don't forget it was my house the dragon almost landed on," he added.

  "See," Petra pointed. "Rowan believes me."

  "Wish I had seen the ship, though. That sounded amazing."

  Petra frowned. "You're not helping."

  "I just think you're reading too much into things, and this isn't the first time. You need to let it go," Viv said, going in for another armful. "There's a lot of work to do, and I don't need you any more distracted than usual."

  Petra was losing patience. "Let it go?" she said. "This is the single biggest thing to happen in … well, as far back as I can remember, and I really don't thin
k anyone else will be letting this one go anytime soon." She gestured down the length of Main Street to punctuate this, where other groups of people were busy working at similar projects, all beginning the slow process of clearing debris and beginning repairs.

  "I'm just trying to keep you safe," Viv insisted, and Petra could hear a note of pleading in her sister's voice underneath the practiced scolding.

  "Safe from what?" Petra asked. "I told you, it's gone."

  Viv exhaled. "I mean safe in general."

  Petra leaned in closer, noticing Viv had averted her eyes and was now looking at the ground. "There's something you're not telling me," Petra said as Viv quickly turned away and stepped back to the discard pile to pick up another armful. "There is," Petra reached out for Viv's arm and turned her back around. "Come on, spill it."

  Viv looked up at her, and there was no mistaking the reticence on her face. "I don't think now is the best time—"

  "When would be a good time?" Petra cut in. "When am I too old to stop being sheltered from whatever secret you're keeping?"

  Viv stood still for a long moment, seemingly trying to decide if this was a good idea. She looked around at the group of people working around her, none of whom seemed to be paying any attention to them, or at least doing a good job of hiding it. She took a deep breath and looked back up at Petra's expectant face. "Come on," Viv said. "We've been out in the sun too long. Let's…" she looked around, pointing to a shaded spot under the covered walk across the street. "Let's just go sit down for a bit."

  They walked over, sat down, and Viv took a quick preparatory breath.

  "All right, what aren't you telling me?" Petra prompted.

  Viv looked her in the face, and Petra could see a combination of steadfast resolve and barely held emotion.

  "I made a promise," Viv started. "To look after you, keep you safe—"

  "Yeah, I know. Mom probably gave you the talk there at the end."

  "I'm not talking about Mom," Viv said.

  Petra was momentarily confused. "You mean … Dad?" They didn't talk much about their father. He had died when they were small children, and Petra didn't have more than a small handful of indistinct memories. "Why didn't you tell me? You know I don't know much about him."

  "Because I know how you are," Viv said. "When you set your mind to something, you go off after it no matter what I or anyone else says about it. I didn't want to add any fuel to that."

  "What are you talking about?"

  Viv paused, seeming to shore up her resolve. "Dad and Mom got together when you were an infant and I was only five. And while he was the only dad I ever knew, and loved me like a daughter, he was your father." This wasn't new information. Petra was aware her father and Viv's mother, two single parents brought together by a common thread of loss, had gotten together when they were both very young, but Viv had never talked about it.

  "You were his shining star," Viv continued. "And he seemed to know what kind of person you'd grow into, because he made me promise to look after you, to keep you safe. I was only nine at the time, so he was probably just trying to make me feel included, but I took that promise seriously." Her expression hardened. "How many times have you gotten in trouble?"

  Petra felt herself getting defensive. "That's not fair—"

  "How many times?" Viv pressed. "How many times have you gotten into something that wasn't your business? How many times did you get lost in the forest exploring?" Viv felt herself edging into lecture mode and took a second to relax a little. It wasn't really Petra's fault, after all. "You're a lot like him. Creative, curious, headstrong. You look like him, too."

  Oddly, this made Petra feel better. She was used to not looking like anybody. "He was tall?"

  "Very," Viv nodded. "Mom only came up to his shoulder."

  An image suddenly flashed in Petra's head, but it wasn't the usual picture formed from the descriptions of her father. It was the wizard. An outsider. "He wasn't from around here, was he?" Petra asked.

  "No," Viv said. "Mom never said where, but that ship you saw? It wasn't the first to show up here."

  "Wait," Petra interrupted. "What are you saying?"

  Viv took a breath, seeming to brace herself. "Dad was an offworlder. I never saw his ship, but the way Mom described it, it sounded … pretty much like what you saw."

  Petra sat staring for a moment as this seemed to sink in. "Off … world?" Petra repeated, her eyes wide, mind reeling. Boone, being an out of the way planet, didn't get many outsiders, and indeed only had one major spaceport to its name, on the complete opposite side of the continent. Petra had never met anyone from off world and had never heard of any traveling this far north. She had lived a sheltered life for long enough that the very idea was foreign to her, but it immediately made a certain amount of sense. Her mind started filling in blanks that had existed for years, which in turn only unearthed more questions. "Which world? How long have you known? When were you going to tell me?"

  "Slow down," Viv said. "This is exactly what Mom was worried about. Why do you think she never told you? She was afraid ten-year-old you would pack a bag and set off looking for him, even though he was gone."

  Petra's brow creased. "Why would I go looking for him, if he's dead?"

  "Would you have known the difference?"

  "Of course I would," Petra said, defiant. Even as a child, she understood the concept of death. Unless— "You didn't answer my question," she pressed back. "Isn't he dead?"

  Viv's eyes were wide as she held Petra's gaze. Her mouth opened, but no words came out.

  "Isn't he?" Petra asked again.

  Viv looked down, fidgeting where she sat. "I don't know."

  Petra was stunned. She sat there for a long moment, but her brain refused to form an adequate response.

  "Mom never would tell me," Viv continued, her voice soft. "She acted like he was, but there was always something in the way she talked about him, like she was being very careful how she phrased things. It's not something I noticed when I was younger, but recently…" Her voice trailed off and she shook her head, sitting in silence for another moment. "I don't know, Petra," she said finally. "I don't know what to tell you."

  Petra stood up, a sudden flash of heat behind her face. "You should've told me something," she said, starting to pace in front of Viv. "Nobody told me anything. Mom was always super vague, and completely deflected all my questions. After a while, I stopped asking." She turned back to her sister. "I never understood why nobody ever talked about him, why I couldn't seem to learn anything about my own father."

  Viv sighed. "Nobody wanted you to miss someone you couldn't remember." she looked up at Petra. "We were just trying to protect you."

  "Well don't," Petra spat. "I'm not as fragile as you think I am, and I stopped being a kid a long time ago." She shook her head, exhaling. "I'm suddenly not feeling very good." She turned on her heel and stepped back toward the other side of the street.

  Viv stood up and started after her. "Petra—"

  Petra spun back, holding up a hand. "Don't."

  Viv halted, watching her sister turn again and march across the street.

  Petra left Viv behind and walked up to Rowan, who was leaning a broken ceiling beam against the discard pile. "Come on, we're leaving," she said, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him with her as she turned toward Town Center.

  "What? Wait, where are we going?" he asked as they stepped up onto the covered walk heading north.

  "Home," Petra said, not slowing down. She wasn't exactly thinking clearly, but her entire worldview had completely shifted in the space of a day, and now more than ever she felt like she had to keep moving. "I need to get some things."

  "And do what?" Rowan had to hurry to keep up with her longer stride. "Talk to me, I can tell you're upset."

  "I need to find him. The wizard, the one I told you about."
<
br />   "Why?"

  Petra stopped and turned to him, and he could see a fresh determination in her, the kind of resolve that usually meant trouble. "A really big puzzle piece just fell into place," Petra explained. "Something that hasn't made sense my entire life is starting to clear up, and I need answers that I'm not going to find here."

  "And you think he can give them to you?" Rowan asked.

  Petra shook her head. "I don't know. But right now he's the only lead I have," she said, turning to stride off once again.

  Rowan caught back up with her. "Would you slow down for a minute? Petra—" He grabbed her arm and turned her back around to face him. "Talk to me. I can't help if I don't know what's going on."

  She took a couple of breaths. "You know how I've always felt sort of … out of place? And I never could explain it?"

  "Yeah. You're just weird," Rowan said, grinning as he threw her usual joke back at her.

  "I'm from off world," Petra said, getting straight to the point.

  Rowan's first impulse was to laugh, but his mind flashed back to her running out of the forest shouting about dragons, and he clamped up.

  "My father brought me with him when he arrived," she continued. "Viv doesn't know from where, but it wasn't here. And then he disappeared."

  Rowan's eyes narrowed. "You said he died."

  "That's what I thought," Petra agreed. "But Viv isn't so sure. If he's still alive, I need to know, and the wizard is the key."

  "Okay now you've lost me. How do you figure that?"

  "You didn't get a good look at him," Petra said. "He was abnormally tall. Like my father. Like me."

  Rowan shook his head. "Some people are tall," he said.

  "Not like this," she persisted. "Look at me; do I look like anyone else you know?" She paused, and Rowan had to admit she had a point. Her slight build, her pale skin tone, her angular features, they were all slightly out of the ordinary for someone in their part of the world. "There are only two people in this town taller than me, and only by a little," Petra continued. "He was a full head taller, had the same build, the same look, as me. And then there's the memory…"